"The Solace of Leaving Early"

I've left home before. I moved away to go to college in a strange town with strange new faces; it was beautiful.
i moved away to start a new life in a place i never dreamed i'd ever live. i made it work; i made friends, i made enemies, i made memories, i made a life.
i've returned home. i've returned for an extended sabbatical, settling into a routine, a job, a way of life. I've reunited with friends, i've lost friends, i've gained friends. i've realized that life always changes even in the place of your childhood. life doesn't stand still when one leaves, contrary to my every belief.
here i am, ready to leave again. never content in one place, one job, one state-of-mind. does my discontent stem from my surroundings or is it internal? how will i know? i have a sickness of the soul which aches for MORE...always.
i am ready to leave. to scrape the humdrum, wasted wreckage of this town off my bare feet and traverse the reaches of the world and never look back. i never intend to return for anything more than a visit (but, will i?!).
i can never forget my life here, but nothing has been the same. i am disappointed and relieved in the same breath... what will it be like to leave again? what will it be like to return?
i want to leave because i don't want to live this mediocre life. i want to live my own life, not the life of my parents or my friends. i want adventure, to make something of myself, to experience life for myself. i want to screw up and stand up and laugh and do it all over again because that is real. (isn't it?)


Into My Own

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why i should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set fourth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew-
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Robert Frost

thank you, Mr. Frost for composing the words which i could have never spoken... and for knowing exactly how i feel. my leaving is not mere whim.. it is a journey i must undertake in order to find the truth, the truth which lies deep within me and can only be birthed through experience and a kind of desperation.